The person who killed the camera is returning to the battlefield.
Over a decade ago, smartphones used computational photography and mobile Internet to reshape the imaging industry, burying countless compact and consumer cameras.
For ordinary users, taking pictures changed from “carrying a camera out” to “pulling out a phone casually.”
But as short videos, store reviews, travel vlogs, and voice-over content became new means of daily expression, phones began to show another weakness: not stable enough, not necessarily suitable for one person to shoot for long periods, and unable to deliver the aesthetic users expect.
Over ten years later, as short videos and content creation created new demands, those who once thought cameras would exit the stage are now returning to the camera market.
Thus, a demand once squeezed out by phones is now regrowing in a new form—handheld gimbal cameras.
They’re not as heavy as traditional cameras, nor merely phone peripherals; instead, they carve out a middle ground between phones and cameras: more stable and better image quality than phones; lighter and easier to use than cameras.
In 2024, DJI’s handheld gimbal camera Pocket 3 sold more than 5 million units, with nearly 20 billion RMB in revenue.
The boom of DJI Pocket 3 gave this middle ground room for imagination for the first time: proving that beyond smartphones, there still exists independent imaging hardware that can sell for three to four thousand RMB and have blockbuster potential.
Confronted with vast market prospects, phone and other manufacturers are eager to try.
Vivo set up a project for a Vlog camera by the end of 2025, directly targeting DJI’s Pocket series, with a team of nearly 100 people; OPPO has also launched a gimbal camera project, code-named “Fuyao”; Honor plans to launch a “Robot Phone” featuring a gimbal camera, essentially merging a smartphone and Pocket camera into one.
Imaging manufacturers are not to be outdone. On June 10 this year, Insta360 teamed up with Leica to launch the Luna Ultra handheld gimbal camera; In May, Canon made public a 2026 patent for gimbal cameras, with its automatic folding design seen as a signal of entry into the handheld gimbal camera field.
However, this collective entry coincided with a new round of chip price hikes.
Demand for AI computing power is driving up prices of key components like memory and image processing chips, raising hardware costs for consumer electronics manufacturers.
Manufacturers see the market opportunity validated by the Pocket camera, but must also face a more expensive supply chain and narrower profit margins.
Lighting-fast offense and defense
Before the real price war began, a patent war broke out.
On the day Luna Ultra was released, DJI filed a lawsuit in the U.S. targeting Insta360’s Luna series products.
In this lawsuit, DJI starts the story in 2018.
That year, DJI launched Osmo Pocket3, defined as “the first truly pocketable, integrated handheld gimbal camera.”
DJI believes that before this, “handheld gimbal” usually referred to a motorized mount onto which users had to attach their own smartphone or action camera.
DJI integrated the camera, three-axis gimbal, electronic processing components, operator buttons, and display screen into a device small enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
This means Pocket is no longer “an accessory for other cameras,” but a fully complete camera in itself, thus pioneering the category of “modern handheld gimbal camera.”
Based on this, DJI argues that Insta360’s Luna rotating screen exterior, gimbal mode switching and subject tracking functions all fall within the scope of early patents approved in the U.S., requesting a permanent injunction against Insta360 Luna.
Insta360 seemed to have expected the lawsuit upon Luna’s launch.
On June 11, Insta360 countersued DJI, accusing infringement of 5 invention patents, including gimbal stabilization algorithm, gimbal point control, smooth camera anti-shake, motion data overlay, and panoramic video stabilization.
Insta360 explained that DJI had referenced Insta360’s patents 161 and 090 when applying for their stabilization platform, remote control method, and vibration-damping equipment and methods. Based on this, Insta360 accused DJI of knowingly continuing infringement, thus constituting willful infringement.
At the same time, Insta360 requested invalidation declarations for the relevant family patents at the China National Intellectual Property Administration.
“Family patents” refer to a set of patents for the same technology applied for in different countries or regions.
“Invalidating patents in China does not directly affect U.S. litigation; patent law is territorial and does not automatically render U.S. patents invalid based on Chinese results. However, since it’s the same batch of technology and similar ideas or statements, these materials can be used as arguments in the U.S. case,” a Beijing intellectual property lawyer explained to Wallstreetcn Global Tech.
This is not the first clash between the two companies.
Back in March 2026, DJI had sued Insta360 at Shenzhen Intermediate Court over patent ownership disputes involving 6 patents, targeting multiple former core DJI R&D staff—accusing them of applying for patents within a year of leaving, closely related to their job tasks when at DJI.
Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang and China regional manager Yuan Yue posted detailed rebuttals on Weibo, with Liu Jingkang countering that DJI’s panoramic cameras fell within multiple Insta360 patents but the company “had not proactively sued.”
The domestic suit is yet unresolved, while the North American battleground is ignited again, escalating the rivalry between the two imaging equipment companies as the handheld gimbal camera market heats up.
Thus, a new problem arises: As DJI and Insta360 wage patent wars, will future entrants like Vivo and OPPO also get caught in similar disputes?
Thirteen years of evolution
Stepping back from the courtroom, the history of handheld gimbal cameras is the result of continuous innovation across product generations.
In 2013, Feiyu Technology, which mainly dealt in drone flight control and aerial gimbals, transferred stabilization technology from drones to handheld use, launching the Feiyu G3 handheld two-axis gimbal as a GoPro action camera accessory.
This brought “stable shooting” from aerial scenarios into ordinary consumer-grade handheld devices.
But G3 was essentially still a camera accessory: it provided a handle, gimbal, and stabilization, but actual image capture depended on the external GoPro.
Two years later, DJI released Osmo, integrating a 4K camera and stabilizer into one machine. Users no longer needed to separately mount an action camera; holding the handle itself allowed angle switching, photo, and video recording.
Compared with Feiyu G3, Osmo came closer to today’s handheld gimbal cameras, but lacked a screen. For real-time framing, adjusting the image, or more operations, users still relied on their phones.
Until 2017, Korean accessory company REMOVU released the K1, packing a 4K camera, three-axis gimbal, handle, and a 1.5-inch LCD screen into a single device, claiming it as “the first integrated three-axis gimbal with built-in LCD screen 4K camera.”
But REMOVU failed to push the category to the masses.
The main issue was insufficient product strength. The K1 weighed 340g, heavier than the popular Canon G7 X Mark II compact camera at the time, but with inferior image quality, lens and portability.
For ordinary users, the K1 was not as convenient as a phone, lacked camera-grade image quality, and was not as rugged as action cameras, failing to excel at any aspect.
REMOVU K1
In 2018, DJI launched the first-generation Osmo Pocket. This time, the form factor finally reached a truly consumer electronics scale: camera, three-axis gimbal, screen, control buttons and a complete shooting system all packed into a pocketable device.
DJI sees this moment as the true birth of the “modern handheld gimbal camera.”
Yet for a long period, the first two generations of Pocket did not become blockbusters in the mass market.
To users, they were always “an extra camera to carry,” requiring more learning than phones, not as rugged as GoPros for extreme sports, and lacking overwhelming advantages in image quality, focal length and depth of field compared to cameras.
The real turning point came with DJI’s release of the Osmo Pocket 3 in 2023.
The 1-inch sensor brought image quality and night performance, making handheld gimbal cameras not just “stable” but able to meet users' aesthetic expectations; a 2-inch rotating touchscreen made framing and selfies intuitive; smart tracking and focus improved solo vlogging, store reviews, travel shoots, and voice-over content production smoothly.
DJI supply chain insiders said DJI didn’t expect Pocket 3's strong sales.
Before launch, Pocket 3's expected stocking was only three to four hundred thousand units; after release, forecast was raised to 1 million, then to 5 million in 2024; by October 2025, cumulative sales surpassed 10 million units.
Starting from Pocket 3, handheld gimbal cameras shifted from a niche imaging tool to a revalued category with imaginative possibilities in the consumer electronics market.
A battle for the “middle ground”
The Pocket 3 boom not only proved the commercial potential of the category, but was also the result of DJI cultivating a complete supply chain ecosystem centered on gimbal and handheld imaging devices over the past decade.
Pocket involves highly integrated motors, gimbal, camera module, wireless connection, cooling, battery, screen and whole unit assembly.
OFILM is DJI’s core strategic supplier; its camera modules and lenses are used in multiple DJI product lines including drones and handheld cameras, with close collaboration.
OFILM’s 2025 annual report showed new business fields achieved revenue of 2.776 billion RMB, up 58.73% year-on-year, with new fields including handheld smart imaging devices.
Pocket’s boom gave upstream companies—camera modules, lenses, motors, connectors—a new growth cycle opportunity.
After DJI matured the supply chain, more players were attracted in; now the challenge is solving product problems.
Handheld gimbal cameras are positioned as “a middle product between phones and cameras.”
Looking up, handheld gimbal cameras must outperform phones by leveraging larger sensors, professional three-axis mechanical stabilization, and an optics and algorithm suite tailored for video, covering the shortfalls of phones in meeting user aesthetic expectations;
Looking down, they must be lighter and more portable than traditional cameras, without the heavy workflow of lens changing, parameter adjustment, or post-processing.
This means the category naturally fights on two fronts: one foot must firmly deliver image quality “better than phones,” and the other must stay “more convenient than cameras.”
If either side is lost, the product is pushed back into the phone or camera territory.
This sets the stage for which companies can compete: one group is professional imaging manufacturers; another is phone companies with a large user base but concerned about imaging being diverted by external devices.
Beyond hardware, each company’s resources differ.
The phone manufacturers’ advantages lie in technical accumulation and channels.
In recent years, OPPO, Vivo and others have invested heavily in phone imaging.
From sensor tuning, night algorithms, portrait algorithms to video stabilization, multi-cam fusion, color management, and AI imaging enhancement, these capabilities can obviously be reused in handheld gimbal cameras.
Another advantage is channels.
OP and Vivo have offline stores, carrier channels, e-commerce systems, and pools of phone users. Once products integrate with the phone ecosystem, handheld pocket gimbal cameras can become an important external device for phone imaging.
Insta360’s advantage lies in creative features.
From panoramic to action cameras, Insta360 focuses on reducing user reliance on professional shooting skills, enabling devices to handle more composition, camera movement, and post-processing for users.
Luna Ultra follows this approach, such as including a detachable screen that works as a remote control, solving issues like selfie angle, checking composition, and previewing footage from afar or fixed positions.
Facing Insta360, Vivo, OPPO’s simultaneous entry, DJI’s next-gen products must safeguard the user mindshare built by Pocket 3 and fend off competitors’ advances in telephoto, larger sensor, and creative features.
On June 15, DJI’s Pocket 4P debuted dual-lens: a 1-inch variable aperture main camera, 3x optical telephoto lens, Hasselblad color, D-Log, 6K 60fps video, and 4K 240fps slow motion.
The 60mm golden mid-focus and f/1.8 large aperture further enhance portrait and storytelling capabilities.
2026 is destined to be a year of chaos for handheld gimbal cameras.
A prolonged war
Everyone entering handheld gimbal cameras is seeking new growth opportunities.
As users' phone replacement cycles lengthen, phone manufacturers are stuck in stock competition; finding true new growth at the three to four thousand RMB price segment has become difficult.
Handheld gimbal cameras offer a new angle: high average price orders, able to leverage phone imaging algorithms, sensor tuning, and channel systems.
The same logic applies to Insta360: panoramic and action cameras are their base, but handheld gimbal cameras are the necessary direction for further growth.
But the timing of these entrants coincides with the highest hardware costs for the entire imaging industry.
Since 2025, the global semiconductor industry has seen a memory price wave defined by Morgan Stanley as “chipflation.”
With AI computing demand booming, Samsung, SK Hynix and others shifted capacity to HBM, DDR5 and other high-margin AI chips, directly reducing output for traditional DRAM and NAND memory.
Memory cost pressure has even pushed former action camera leader GoPro to the brink of acquisition, now seeking a “sale.”
As competition intensifies, it’s hard for players to pass rising costs fully on to consumers.
An obvious sign is the latest pricing of DJI and Insta360’s new products, essentially at mid-range phone levels. Pocket 4P and Luna Ultra are priced at 3799 and 3999 RMB, respectively.
Relatively speaking, phone manufacturers, because of scale, have stronger bargaining power in the supply chain.
But their challenge is the sustainability of resource investment.
For DJI and Insta360, handheld gimbal cameras are core imaging business battlegrounds; for OV, they may just be tentative extensions of the phone imaging ecosystem. If sales, gross margin, or channel feedback fall short, this product line may not remain prioritized internally.
In the high-cost year of 2026, “whether the first-generation product can recoup R&D investment” may directly decide whether a company is determined to persist to second and third generations.
This lively multi-party battle is very likely to conclude in a relatively calm and convergent manner.
In the end, those who survive may be companies willing to endure cost pressure, persevere through the window, and wait for scale effects to kick in.
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